Vertical feed mixers having open-top mixing tubs have been used in agriculture for many years. Vertical mixers process forages and commodities of all types of feed for livestock. Vertical mixers include a tub containing one or more vertical augers. These augers can have knives mounted on their flights such that when the augers rotate, the knives will cut the forage and the augers will process and blend the components within the tub. The result will yield a total mixed ration (“TMR”).
There are commodities or components that cannot be readily processed and blended with currently known mixing augers such as wet distiller's grain (ethanol by-product) and steam-flaked corn. These are two feed components typical in most TMRs fed to beef cattle. Typical rations will consist of small percentages of pre-processed roughage (less than 5%) and high percentages of steam-flaked corn and wet distiller's grain (ethanol by-product). If these two components are improperly mixed, reduced particle size, breakage of the feed components into fines and balling of the wet distiller's grain can result in the TMR.
The inability of current auger designs to effectively process and blend these components has limited the mixer usefulness to some producers and/or end-users. Currently known auger designs comprise three flight sections and have a narrower profile. These auger designs cannot move enough feed mix (ration make-up) from the bottom of the mixing tub to the top of the auger flights without causing breaking or reducing the particle size of steam-flaked corn. The result is too many fines in the mixture thereby making the entire ration useless. When high percentages of the wet distiller's grain (ethanol by-product) are used in feed mixtures with current auger designs, balling of the feed mixture can result thereby preventing the feed ration from being consistently mixed throughout. Again, this makes the entire ration practically useless.